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ichannel Documentary Premiere: EVERY STEP YOU TAKE – Tonight at 9 pm ET/PT

With more than four million closed-circuit TV (CCTV) security cameras in operation – one for every 14 citizens – Britain has become “the surveillance capital of the world.” The average Londoner appears on camera 300 times a day – a quietly chilling realization of George Orwell’s famous vision of a nation under constant scrutiny.

The growth of CCTV surveillance in the UK over the past two decades is the result of various factors, including cutbacks in traditional policing and the looming fear of terrorist attacks. But as this provocative 2007 documentary by Austrian filmmaker Nino Leitner reveals, experts disagree about whether CCTV actually does anything to reduce crime – and civil libertarians fear that its ubiquity is steadily eroding individual privacy.

With North Americans debating the desirability of intrusive security measures such as “virtual strip searches” at airports, Every Step You Take raises timely questions about the increasingly blurred line between the public and the personal. How much of our privacy are we willing to sacrifice in the name of greater “security”?

For more information on Nino Leitner’s Every Step You Take, please visit the documentary’s Web site.